


until death takes me

by cassandor



Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Reincarnation, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-24 07:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17096600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandor/pseuds/cassandor
Summary: One promise, with fire and family as witnesses.Seven lifetimes, bound to the to other, a bond untouchable even by death.





	1. One Promise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fiera94](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fiera94/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> even if you change your mind  
> wherever you go...

Bright eyes peer under dark curls. "But how do you know," Baahu asks, cheeks still round like the laddoos he sneaks to the elephants, "who is the one? Before you make the oath?" 

Sivagami regards her sons, with her own skin un-marked and world so painfully black-and-white, and says, "you will know." 

* * *

The princess whirls, her sword slicing the palanquin's gauzy curtains and Baahu's world in two.

The forest's formerly unremarkable colours swell, earthen air laden with divine sweetness, and all of Mahismathi's harps and horns coming to life in his heartbeat.

In the midst of all those fallen bodies, a solitary figure clad in bird-like blue and young-red, stands tall. 

"I have," Baahu tells his Uncle, "never even _heard_ of a woman quite like her." 

 _She is the one,_ Baahu might add. Though his heart longs to say it, he's afraid of what an oath spoken too early - unwanted, ill-deserved, fed by all the wrong emotions - might lead him to. 

("Chaos. Madness," Sivagami had warned him. "And no cure known to beings both human and divine.")

* * *

He waits, and observes, and for every test she presents to the fool Shivu, Baahu learns more about Devasena. The archer, the princess, the dancer, the sister, and Kuntala's beloved guardian. 

With his clothing still aflame, her family and his own Uncle as witnesses, Baahu knows it is time.

"From this moment, until death takes me, I am yours, Devasena." 

* * *

One promise, with fire and family as witnesses.

Seven lifetimes, bound to the to other, a bond untouchable even by death.

* * *

 "Madness?" Bhalla queries. "What sort of madness?" 

He thinks of those roaming the streets and royal hospitals. When he becomes King, he thinks, those stains will be the first he will wipe from his empire.

"Insatiable desire," Sivagami replies, stifling the knowing terror of an adult woman. She softens her voice as to not scare her children. "As if one was hungry, and no matter what they ate, they would never stop craving food." 

"That's awful." Baahu gapes, aghast, and Bhalla nods sagely, for once in agreement.

* * *

Bhalla unwinds the portrait, and is suddenly privy to another type of hunger.

Another kingdom to conquer, another game to win.

"She will be yours," Sivagami swears, but the holy flames are elsewhere.

* * *

"More than just saying the oath, the power lies in keeping it."

Devasena looks up from her mother's knee, and at this angle she can see the underside of her jewel-laden earrings and the curve of her chin.

"How do you keep an oath when you're dead?" she asks. Her mother laughs.

"Keep it while you're alive. Everything else will follow." 

Devasena doesn't quite understand, and when her Baahu is slain she curses the very concept. Soulmates! As if her Baahu had loved her any less, and somehow had deserved his demise, and their separation.

* * *

Mahendra, still warm with her own scent, swears by fire and family to come back. The kingdom burns to ash, and her home becomes a cage, but the flame has been lit, and Devasena has hope.

* * *

Mahendra promised, and he returns, without memory or mentor to guide him.

* * *

When Devasena's time comes, she knows she will see her Baahu once again.

"By flame and friends," she reminds a still-young Mahendra and Avantika, "and only when you are ready. Remember what happened to that rakshasa, still lusting for power and control on his deathbed." 

With mild horror, she realizes Bhalla had asked for her companionship - by family and fire.


	2. Seven Lives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you are the hunter that fired the arrow  
> you are the heart that is its target

Devasena dies first, this time, the cliff seeming to float past her feet.

The fall is eerily silent, until a wretched cry reaches her ears. Baahu, lovesick man that he always is, leaps after her. Reaching for the fluttering blue of her sari, the gold bangles on her wrist, but doesn't quite make it.

The fall hurts, but she can rest assured.

She'd made her promise not only over flame, not only with family as witness, but with her own blood as ink.

And she'd taken Bhalla down with her.

* * *

They make mistakes. Every single lifetime. A misstep here, there, and they tumble like children. They have to start all over again, rising up with scabbed knees and teary eyes. Devasena wonders aloud, in the short burst of breath between lifetimes, that they're cursed by their accumulated sins to be born over and over and over again.

Baahu, ever the optimist, reminds her that they're the ones who made a promise worth seven lifetimes, and it must be awfully boring for the universe to play out the same story in every iteration. 

Devasena smiles at that, and then all is forgotten to be rewritten all over again.

* * *

The next one is their first as commoners, and as commoners there are more things to worry about than soulmates. The rising price of grain, their crops falling to disease, their homes drowned by angry waves.

Deva has a sense she's destined for someone, but there is far more to be worried about. Justice, she thinks, and curses to be heaped upon their ruler who only desires for land, gold, and flesh. 

She does not meet Amarendra until they're both sentenced for death, but in the short walk to their execution he's already charmed their guards, who openly weep when their duties are complete and behead Palvaldevan themselves.

"You know," Deva says, "I'm not the type to fall so quickly, but-"

"I feel as though we've been falling for much longer than these lives," Amarendra, traitor to the throne, replies with a sad grin. 

"Perhaps."

"By God," Amarendra says, "I would like a chance to know you. I had heard the name, and the beauty and terror behind it, but you seem to be so much more."

This Deva had never learned of oaths, but she replies, as the ritual pyre is set and all the village gathers in terror, "as do I."  

* * *

 Bhalla comes and goes, and most of the time Devasena doesn't really know if it is really him or another man of his kind. She frankly doesn't care. Though he may trail her like a shadow, he is worth no more than the dust stuck to her feet. 

* * *

Devan is the traitor cloaked in the white-man's sheepskin, yet even in this life Amaran's death isn't at his hands. He leads them to the rebel safehouse, down a tricky forest path only locals know to negotiate, but has no authority to fire the rifle.

Bereaved of a leader, the resistance suffers, but this time, Devayani is there to take his place. Devan falls to Devayani's blade, and amidst the cries for Independence, she has twins.  

* * *

Sometimes there is no Bhalla. Sometimes the thing that drives them part is worse than any single being. Poverty, sickness, birth. The time they're Deva and Amaravati, for example, or the time Mahishmathi's slavery takes its revenge and Baahu is born the lowest of the low. 

Sometimes they have years together. Sometimes minutes. Sometimes they have children. Sometimes they die together, sometimes they die without ever knowing whatever happened to the other. They're betrayed, often, and Devasena thinks it's the common thread linking all these lives.

It's not always Kattappa. By her guess, sometimes it's Sivagami, and in other lifetimes it's someone they hardly remember from the first. Senapathy. Kalakeyan. Saket.

"We've made so many enemies," Devasena bemoans.

"We've made friends, too."

That they have. Devasena finds herself with some family in every lifetime. Not always a brother, but sometimes she has her parents longer than she ever did the first time. 

 

* * *

An entire lifetime together, not as lovers, but as friends. He hands her a garland of wildflowers, and she promises they'll marry someday. 

"Someday? Why not now?" 

"Silly, we aren't even adults."

"But I'm already yours!"

Baahu kneels and stretches his arms, bellowing dramatically, and Deva chuckles, tossing a handful of plucked flowers at him. 

(Warring clans are warring clans, so the secret marriage is rushed and lasts three days.) 

* * *

 "How many has it been?"

"Never enough, with you... but six." 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That movie refence *eyes emoji* summary song lyrics are the U-Turn Karma theme which I thought was apt for the fic.


	3. Her Stranger

Devasena is three years into her successful career as a lawyer when the case that changes her life appears with the clunk of a coffee cup placed on her desk.

"Thank you." She hardly stops her steady stream of typing, only a fleeting glance and the accompanying smile she reserves for the Cute, Buff, and Very Aloof Barista Guy. Three years, and two years at the office tower that looms across the street from this cafe. Two years since she, in a late-night rush, first tasted The Best Coffee Ever. 

Her standards for coffee aren't very high. Devasena can't stand the taste of it - so whatever concoction that can stifle her senses while retaining a caffeine content high enough to get her through the rest of the day is good enough to her. 

Cute Barista Guy's coffee is more than that. It actually tastes  _good._  Really good. Craving At 2 AM kind of good. 

The discovery led to Deva claiming a stake at this particular table from 3 to 7 PM on weekdays, where natural light eases the strain on her eyes, where the windows allow for people watching but the safety of a wall to her back so she can greet any unwelcome guests with arrows in her eyes. 

Cute Barista Guy - whose name is Shivu, she knows from his nametag, but she likes Capitalizing Things Unnecessarily - hasn't moved from her side. His shadow lingers, far longer than usual. It's late enough that the cafe is empty save for an older woman nursing a drink.

Some nights Barista Guy would sing as he swept up the shop, and more recently, whenever Devasena's workload spared her the opportunity, they would sit and chat over chai.

In all honesty, she doesn't know much about him. Shivu isn't on Facebook - he apparently has an allergy to social media, being the Biggest Hipster Devasena has ever met, long rowdy hair and rolled up sweaters included. She's somewhat privy to his side gig of handcrafted woodwork, having been offered an endless supply of Christmas presents for her extended family. By _somewhat,_ Devasena means she knows far more about types of chairs than she ever thought she would.

"They're ethically sourced," he'd told her when she asked, thinking that her brother-in-law might fancy a new axe to hang on his trophy wall of Things Kumar Says He Knows How to Use. 

"Really?"

"Yeah, I tore them apart with my own bare hands." 

He'd chuckled then, and Devasena with him, but unlike Kumar she was pretty sure Shivu was very much capable of such a feat. 

_He's like a Brown Chris Evans._

Brown Chris Evans hasn't moved to sit in the empty chair across from her, nor has he moved on to sweeping up shop. Devasena glances at him.

"Hi," he says, suddenly shy, as if he's talking to her for the very first time. He juts his chin towards the cup.

She follows his gaze. Instead of her Cafe Name (Rani - no matter how cute Barista Guy was, it was a hard habit to break) scrawled in thick black marker, she spots a swirling design of pink and blue feathers. 

"It's very pretty," she manages to say, picking up the cup, having no idea how to comment about art. Her exposure to it was limited to visits to her sister-in-laws' textile business and the long swathes of cloth brought to life by women both widowed and new to the country, the bold colours and gold embroidery their foot up in life.

"Thanks."

Shivu looks down and digs his toes into his shoes. 

"Are you thinking about changing your logo design?" she offers.

"N-no." 

She nods slowly, inching her mouse pointer to close the rest of her tabs, sensing that something bigger was about to happen, but not quite sure how to guide Really Aloof Barista Guy's conversation.

"I...." Shivu starts, shuffling his feet. "I need your help. You're a lawyer, right?" His gaze shifts between Devasena and the older woman in the back, just as the streetlights start to flicker on outside. 

"I am." 

* * *

 Sivagami, Devasena thinks, is probably one of the worst clients she's ever met. Oh, at first, the older woman had seemed very reasonable and even someone a younger Deva who still wore her hair in two braids might want to Grow Up To Be. But as they spoke, Devasena couldn't help but balk at how Shivu's aunt clung so desperately to the least logical of rules.

"-so you just left all your wealth to an absolute  _psycho?_ "

"I made a promise."

"It wasn't a legally binding oath, madam," Devasena states coldly, knowing her voice alone would inform the blind woman of her contempt. "You don't need to be a lawyer to know that, but you _did_ end up signing away all your papers, so now it's a problem." She glances at Shivu. "You're okay with all of this?"

"If I was," Shivu replies, "I wouldn't have asked you for help. That's _my_ inheritance."

Devasena inhales slowly and presses her face into her hands. Leave it to her to get herself stuck between Aloof Buff Guy, Crazy Aunt Sivagami, and his dead parents' millions. Couldn't he just wrestle his way back to control over Mahismathi Inc? He has the muscles. 

"-I'm perfectly content with working at Maama's cafe," Devasena peeks at Shivu through her fingers. "I c-can feed myself. I just wanted to, to use, to use the money for some good, you know? Bhalla's just exploiting his workers i-in search of more profit. I'd give, give it all away, or, you know, start an orphanage or something. Th-that would be nice. Just a hundred kids, running around and chasing the-their dreams, wouldn't that be nice, Mother?"

Sivagami takes a page from Devasena's book and sighs.

* * *

Shivu - Baahu, she learns, and tells him her real name - promises her free coffee for the duration of the case. She almost wants to ask him if he'd give her free coffee for life, but even Baahu's coffee wouldn't be worth becoming Sivagami's daughter-in-law.

She opts instead to ask permission to head behind the cafe's counter, where, to everyone's horror, she spills an entire cup of boiling water all over Baahu's shoulder. 

* * *

When Devasena relays this story in later years, she skims over most of the legal proceedings - unless it's to her junior lawyers, who by that point in time, stare at Devasena-who-took-down-Bhalla-Dev with starry eyes. After all, there's enough intrigue and betrayal she could sell the script to Kollywood. Her junior lawyers get all the legalese and a rapid fire shooting down of all the myths that had arisen from the tale.

For one: Bhalla did not fancy her, thank you very much. This story had enough problems without an unnecessary addition to the romance portion.

Secondly: Bhalla's father and Sivagami's husband, Pingal Dev, had indeed been the one to poison Baahu's parents behind Sivagami's back, and it was Baahu's Maama, Kattappa, who procured the evidence to toss him in jail for life.

Thirdly: had it not been for Sivagami's quick thinking, Devasena admits, neither her or Baahu would've made it out alive after the initial coup. By signing away Mahishmathi, she'd bought herself and her nephew time to escape. 

"But, ma'am," Avantika, the brightest of her juniors asks, "whatever happened to Baahu?" 

"He died getting us proof that Mahishmathi was exploiting the Kalakeya villages' water sources - Bhalla arranged for his car to be in an accident. But we found his will, and he'd stated he wanted all of his inheritance to be put towards an orphanage, which his aunt is now in charge of." 

* * *

 

It's a lie, Devasena knows, but it's one worth telling. Nobody had seen Baahu in years, and if anyone asked she could pass off Shivu's striking resemblance to the deceased as just a fluke. She'd suggested Shivu reveal his true identity but he'd said:

"I won't be able to do anything I love. I'd be mobbed by reporters and the like."

Devasena stifles a laugh. "Like what, tear apart logs?" 

Baahu chuckles. "Yes, that, and run the orphanage, but also, imagine my poor wife and what she'd be put through! They'd expect her to be all prim and proper, and sit with her legs together, and not drink three cups of coffee in a day, and not practice archery on the weekends, and wear dresses all the time, and have always manicured nails, and-" 

The laugh bubbles out of Devasena's chest. "Is that a proposal, Baahu?" 

Baahu grins. "I'm already yours, Devasena." 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literal ages ago I was trying to piece together a modern AU Satyavan/Savitiri and @parlegee helped me straighten something out and then I realized it would be a perfect fit for a modern AU Amaresena so. That's what this is and a big thank you to Maya!


End file.
